UWP Apps Can Access Most Of The Kinect Sensor Data With The Upcoming Windows 10 Anniversary Update

Today, Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps cannot access most of the data from a Kinect sensor except for the Kinect sensor’s microphone array that is already visible to the UWP audio and speech recognition APIs today. Microsoft recently announced that Kinect developers will be able to read RGB, infrared (IR), and depth data from the Kinect sensor using UWP apps with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update and a Kinect driver update.

Skeleton data is important to many Kinect apps. Through a supplemental SDK that will be available later this year, UWP developers will have access to skeletal poses. With the new capabilities in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, developers can also use the existing Windows.Media.FaceAnalysis APIs with Kinect to detect and track faces.

Download Windows 10 build 14332 and its preview SDK to try this out. Watch the Channel 9 video for a brief preview of the full capabilities.